BIRMINGHAM — Almost each year at this time, now U.S. Sen. Doug Jones heads to the old Tutwiler Hotel bar, meeting fellow members of the team that successfully prosecuted two Klansmen in the Ku Klux Klan’s 1963 church bombing that killed four girls.

He did it again Monday night, spending time with those whose work helped lead to the May 2, 2001, conviction of Thomas Blanton in the Sept. 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. On May 22, 2002, a jury convicted Bobby Cherry in the bombing that killed Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all 14, and Denise McNair, who was 11.

The team, which some call "The Justice League," included FBI agents who read all 41 volumes of the original case file and interviewed potential witnesses across the entire U.S.

U.S. Sen. Doug Jones reminisces with prosecution team about the convictions in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls. The group tries to gather each year in May — the anniversaries of the 2001 conviction of Thomas Blanton and the 2002 conviction of Bobby Cherry(Photo: Clarion Ledger)

The team included federal and state prosecutors and those working in those offices.

“More than the firehoses and the dogs, that bombing defined Birmingham and defined Alabama and to some extent the entire South,” Jones said.

To then “reach back into history for something that had been an open wound in the city and be a part of the prosecution to show that “we have changed,” he said, has “meant about everything.”

At age 24, he skipped classes at law school to watch then-Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley win the conviction of Bob Chambliss in the case in 1977.

He saw the effect that the case had on the community and those four families. Two decades later, he became U.S. attorney in Birmingham, inheriting the bombing case.

As important as the convictions have been, he said, it’s the aftermath that has mattered, not only helping to heal, but to bring change.

He said they do this annual gathering “because this was a very special team that came together with different backgrounds that brought different things to the table. Every one had a different view, but a common purpose.”

They spent much of Monday night reminiscing about the case. Retired FBI agents Bill Fleming and Ben Herren talked about the important role the press played in publicizing the case, resulting in witnesses that came forward.

Andrew Sheldon of Atlanta, the jury consultant in the case and other civil rights cold cases, said songwriter John Prine “was a major cause of team bonding” because the first time he met Jones and Posey at FBI offices to review case files, Sheldon was humming a line from the Prine song, “There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes.”

Jones and Posey finished the song with him.

Wallace said what makes the annual reunion special is "most of us already knew each other, but now we share that bond of having been there together at a really important time."

Before the evening ended, the team toasted Jones for his Senate victory in which he defeated Republican Roy Moore, becoming the first Democrat from Alabama elected to the Senate in a quarter-century.

Jones has little time to rest. The Democratic senator has already begun raising campaign funds for his 2020 race and has been back in his home state almost every weekend since the election.

He spent more than $20 million on last year’s campaign, where he received 98 percent of the black female vote in Alabama — more than Barack Obama received in 2008.

Jones said his focus remains on working for the people of Alabama, reaching across the aisle and finding common ground.